VRS Estate 2011 breaks and suspension

[murcGuru]

Short history: Got my vRS estate a few weels ago and it  has done 145 000km and as far as I know is still on original shocks/springs bushings and breaks , it has a full service history but only thing mentioned is the break fluid. Car was fitted with brand new but unfortunatly cheap tires Marshall 205/17/40 on the stock alloys. Just passed a MOT same day as I bought it and I then took it to a VW service center week after that (Mainly to check the oil  in case it is a burner) and everything checked out fine.

Ok so the question(s). Not looking to lowering the car or makong the suspension harder as I use it daily however I like to drive fast on twisty roads every now and then and feel the front end is a bit loose on fast thight turns. Is there any point in upgrading the suspension or just use the stock one? How about swaybars they keep the straight line ride comfort but improwe cornering right? Has anyone here fitted them and is it the same ones that go on the combi and estate?
What about bushings and engine mounts at what point should I check/change them? Again guessing Im better off going with stock rather then poly.

Pads look OK, front disk OK, back disks look to have some wear but I have seen worse. Probably will change to Brembo slotted disks and brembo pads when the time comes for them to be changed. However the breaking feels a bit numb and you need to press the pedal quite hard. Car stops ok at least concidering the crap tires, tested it by slamming the breaks ay 150km/h (90mph)  going tp a full stop.  Break fluid change comming up next service in a few months  unless I do it myself guessing they use dot 4 but is there any real benefit of going sot 5 instead?  Real problem I suspect is the break lines/houses  anyone know if the OEM ones are good or should I concider upgrafing them and if so to what brand?

Last queastion at least for now.

Will 215/17/40 Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetric tires fit the stock rims?  The curreenr ines will probably not last a year

[nta16]

Please note - I am not a mechanic or expert in anything.

 

If your brake fluid needs changing then do not wait to change it.  If you have no firm evidence that it has been changed in the last 18-24 months then change it.  You can test the brake fluid for moisture content but if you change it now you know for sure it has been done and when, how and what with.  DOT 4 is fine but you can get some DOT 4 fluids that are better than others, ask a good supplier which is best for your needs as there may be different availability in different countries and regions.

 

If you want to change from DOT4 make sure you know the difference between DOT 5 and DOT 5.1.

 

For the brakes, steering and suspension change the tyres first as the tyres have effect on all three, don't wait if you are unhappy with the present tyres even if they are new.  But do check your current tyres, even if they are new, that they are not damaged in anyway and that they are all at the correct tyre pressure.  If they are brand new they make take a number of miles to be at their best certainly they make be "greasy" for the first 100-200 miles and may take even up to about the first 1,000 miles to settle in my experience.

 

Changing the tyres will change the braking feel.

 

Changing to slots or drilled discs is more about fashion that function but if you are into the fashion think about these later.  Good quality brake pads will have more effect, yes coupled with good quality discs but they do not need to be slots or holes.

 

The grip and handling of the tyre is about the design, manufacture and compounds and not the width, 205 is wide and 40 profile on 17" wheels already crashing and bumpy enough (or too much) for normal road unless you have racetrack smooth roads in Finland.

 

We have all done it got a new car and wanted to go to the car toy shop and empty the shelves but you will be better owning and driving the car for a while to find out what you really need and want to do with it to make improvement.  Plus whatever money you spend on toys you make need to spend on unexpected repairs, servicing and maintenance with a second hand old car new to you.

 

First priorities are brakes, steering and suspension - tyres cover all three of those so sort them first (along brake fluid if required).

 

Slamming your brakes on at 90mph to a full stop will do nothing to help cheap, crap or good tyres particularly if they are brand new with very few miles on them.

 

I do not expect I have given you the answers you wanted but I hope some of it makes sense and helps and others will be along more into what you were expecting.

 

[murcGuru]

The slamming  the breaks thing was on the old tires the dealer had on when I had it for a test drive.   The car has a full service history and the breakfluid change is comming up next time (among with the usual plugs and oil change) doing as much as I can mysel to save money, changed cabin filter, air filter etc mysel already.  Not touching anything that affects the oil before next service thou. If you buy from a dealer they are responcible for car failuers for 6 months over here so if it is burning oil I will return it or they will have to fix it.

 

Oh and slotted disks is mainy for the looks they are prettymush the same price

 

The main reason I was thinking 215 tires over 205 was to get a bit more traction off the line

[Ootohere]

Welcome.

The 215/40 R 70's are fine on the Gigaro.

The tyre size is standard on Polo, Ibiza & A1 Twinchargers. 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/280947-215-40-17-tyres

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/329818-2154017-tyre-pressures

 

The rest of your stuff is general maintenance and upgrading and there is 12 years pf posts covering it in this section and in the Fabia Project Section.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot

[murcGuru]

25 minutes ago, roottoot said:

Welcome.

The 215/40 R 70's are fine on the Gigaro.

The tyre size is standard on Polo, Ibiza & A1 Twinchargers. 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/280947-215-40-17-tyres

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/329818-2154017-tyre-pressures

 

The rest of your stuff is general maintenance and upgrading and there is 12 years pf posts covering it in this section and in the Fabia Project Section.

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah tried searching but the replies are scartered over 100 posts and the search funktion sucks at least on this phone 😑

[nta16]

Please note - I am not a mechanic or expert in anything.

 

5 hours ago, murcGuru said:

The slamming  the breaks thing was on the old tires the dealer had on when I had it for a test drive.   

Fair enough.  Been a long time since I have test driven a car from a garage but over here I think it has been a long time back since you were allowed out in the car by yourself, unless you were known to the garage, far too much paperwork to allow that.  I hope you done a few lower speed braking tests before the 90 to zero.

 

 

5 hours ago, murcGuru said:

The car has a full service history

That is a good base but it does not usually cover the full maintenance service of  car at 90,000 miles but perhaps yours does, if so you look for what has not been carried out, some items are not listed as part of services now but you might carry out if you want to have the car running really well particularly if you intend to drive it hard.

 

Best tuning you can do on the car is to make sure the whole car is fully serviced, maintained and repaired and that often is beyond the usual Dealership/garage full service history.  You need a solid base to work and get improvements and upgrades from (those that are actually improvements and upgrades).

 

 

5 hours ago, murcGuru said:

Oh and slotted disks is mainy for the looks they are prettymush the same price

You do need to compare like with like, if you look a brand 'A', type/model 'B' discs usually their slotted and/or drilled discs are more expensive than their plain discs but you decide how much that price difference matters to you and how important the performance and looks/fashion are, good brakes are good brakes (and the tyres input to this).

 

 

5 hours ago, murcGuru said:

The main reason I was thinking 215 tires over 205 was to get a bit more traction off the line

Again the tyre itself is important - but this is track stuff in which case you would probably want different tyres to the ones for road use or be happy changing tyres a lot (lot) more frequently.  I am all for spirited driving but public roads are just that and not race tracks.  There is no law against how quick you get to the speed limit here, at least not yet, but such hard driving is very wearing on a vehicle. Though It is great to see some bloke with all the money to have a supercar and not being able to set a launch control so sits embarrassingly at a stop or just limps off  🤣 - this was off the public road.

 

I do not know how things go with your purchase but over here I can think of no reason why provided they are a standard size to the vehicle and wheels you would not be allowed to change to a set of better tyres within the 6 months and then as I put drive the car for that time to get used to it and discover what you want or needs changing or work done and this is the time to improve or upgrade, provided it keeps the overall balance of any system such as braking or suspension.

 

On of the very best tuning aids for a vehicle that is often overlooked, and is generally transferable to similar vehicles is driver training and I say this as a self-admitted (and confirmed by others) not particularly great driver.  A trained driver can improve the handling of most cars they drive just by the way they drive it, on the road or track, I know I've been out on the public road with a couple and on tracks with a couple.  As with a lot of things in life it is not what you have but how you use it and you do not need to flash it around when you are confident in its use - all this excludes me unfortunately. ☹️

 

Good luck, one day all this will seem to make more sense.

 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by nta16

[Ootohere]

12 year old suspension on a Mk2 Fabia estate might well need a refresh. 

Engine and gearbox mounts as well. 

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/396672-vrs-suspension-upgrade-options

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/504301-advice-appreciated-on-a-suspension-kit-for-my-mk2-vrs-estate

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/387552-fabia-ii-vrs-estate-suspension-modifications-hr-springs-or-ap-coilovers

 

[nta16]

Please note - I am not a mechanic or expert in anything.

 

On an older second hand car I would been refreshing a few other things that many engineers and mechanics say not to bother with/waste of time but that is just me and my experience, especially on a car I intend to drive in a spirited fashion on the road.

 

It is no wonder I have no money left now. 

 

[J.R.]

5 hours ago, murcGuru said:

Yeah tried searching but the replies are scartered over 100 posts and the search funktion sucks at least on this phone 😑

Try using "brakes" instead of "breaks" in your search terms 💡

 

I find searching google with Briskoda followed by your search terms gives  better results than the forum search function, that is true for most forums.

[Ootohere]

@nta16

Here we are talking Mk2 Fabia vRS Estate or even the hatch.

136 kW minimum and a DQ200 DSG. 

Pretty crap suspension & brakes from the factory, narrower tyres than the sister cars from VW, SEAT & Audi got,

parts often shagged in 6 years let alone 12.  They did the job and some might still have the original parts.

Dealer fit option in the UK that people did as a Factory order was the Eibach springs instead of what Skoda called 'Sport suspension as OEM on vRS & Monte Carlos. 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/437596-fabia-vrs-mk2-braided-brake-hoses

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/378932-312mm-and-256mm-upgrade-question

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/462717-fabia-mk2-brake-upgrade

 

[nta16]

@roottoot I've no doubt VW internal politics and group marketing had to keep the parts and components on the Skoda below their other brands.  Even if they'd have put better I'd not be surprised that after 12 years the brakes and suspension could be improved on especially on a car designed to be driven in a spirited manner particularly as a humble 90ps car can't even manage more 6 years out of factory dampers or even 12 months out of their Dealer replacements.

 

What I was trying to get at was to avoid the rushing to change things too soon on a car unknown to the user and not to just look at the popular numbers thing for items rather than as an overall.  Often also you can have more fun with less on the public road, think of James Hunt and his A35 van (and yes I know, despite having no interest in roundy-round racing there were other reasons why he had it).

 

No matter how much you have on the right occasion it's never enough until it gets beyond your abilities.  If all the drivers aids could really be turn off then less would probably often be enough or more than enough but even the computers can't beat the real  world physics and as yet the tyres can't do much more than they ever could even if in fully and correct contact with the road surface, such as it is, non-existent sometimes for the whole of a contact area, thank gawd for those computers.  😄

 

If 205 aren't enough then why stop at 215, get wider wheels and wider tyres, all these compromises against the traffic light Grand Prix (I suppose it should F1, unless Bernie goes down of course, as if that'd happen. 🤣).

 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by nta16

[Ootohere]

@nta16

Because 225's were too much,

they were on Audi A1's on 18" rims on  122 ps cars and i tried them. 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/397377-18s-on-a-fabia-mk2

 

 

The TC / ASR goes off with a push of the button, hold a few seconds, 

but the XDS goes off with Track use or fast road use when the Brake Fluid and the System overheats.

So you prepare for the track, and even reduce / disable the EDL / XDS so that there is less or no nipping of the brakes. 

Some members like in Norway even disable the ESP / ESC for winter or track.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/227295-who-needs-a-lsd

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/312119-vrs-stability-control-question

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/232730-xds-and-brake-mod

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/439937-esp-button

 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot

[murcGuru]

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

Try using "brakes" instead of "breaks" in your search terms 💡

 

I find searching google with Briskoda followed by your search terms gives  better results than the forum search function, that is true for most forums.

It's my sausage fingers. I hate writing on the phone 😅

[J.R.]

I would happily swap sausage fingers for one eye, I cant write on the phone to be able to hate it!

 

I can manage to do texts on my old school Nokia with 9 keys for the alphabet and predictive text, not as easy as it once was but still possible.

[J.R.]

1 hour ago, nta16 said:

I've no doubt VW internal politics and group marketing had to keep the parts and components on the Skoda below their other brands.

Same part numbers, same components fitted from the same OE suppliers on all vehicles across all the marques using the common build platforms.

 

Deliveries will be made to the individual plants across the countries but the parts will be identical and will have come off the same machinery in the same batches.

 

It is possible that a domestic supplier to domestic  assembly plants in emerging markets like China could produce sub standard parts bearing the same part number but that will have been a breakdown or failure in the VAG quality control and not a corporate decision. The same could happen in Europe, Sach clutches spring to mind but that was not a decision by VAG to put the crap ones into Skoda vehicles, the problem was not known and when the defects revealed themselves they affected all the vehicles of all marques that they were fitted to.

[J.R.]

There was a time that Skoda would get the new generation powertrains before the other VAG premium marques in case faults revealed themselves in service that had not shown up during the millions of miles of testing, I don't think that has been the case for a couple of decades.

[Ootohere]

'Millions of miles of testing'  I think not!

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/421365-links-to-lucifers-ultimate-guide-to-14-tsi-twincharger-engines

This it is about the SEAT's first. 

SEAT often got to try stuff out, then models got old tech long after VW, Audi or even Skoda stopped getting it, and this was good tried and tested stuff while VW Group launched new generation tech with faults carried on from the last generation.

 

So not millions of miles of testing / R&D or getting the basics right with Euro 5 Emission Twin Chargers,

there were Euro 4 as they were in VW's with 140 / 160 PS,

then is SEAT's with 180 ps and were having issues before they were used in the Skodas. 

 

They still introduced them in the knowledge there were fundamental design, manufacturing and material / part faults, and software / engine management.

Even pretended there was not right up to discontinuing the first series of engines and introducing the updated / upgraded which they continued over some parts that were not right. 

Spark Plugs, Breather Pipes & Valves, Software Updates and ECU changes, Oil Spray Jets. Pistons, rings, scrapers.

 

 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot

[murcGuru]

6 hours ago, roottoot said:

12 year old suspension on a Mk2 Fabia estate might well need a refresh. 

Engine and gearbox mounts as well. 

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/396672-vrs-suspension-upgrade-options

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/504301-advice-appreciated-on-a-suspension-kit-for-my-mk2-vrs-estate

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/387552-fabia-ii-vrs-estate-suspension-modifications-hr-springs-or-ap-coilovers

 

So stick to stock suspension if I dont want to lower the car? 

[Ootohere]

Not if you have to buy replacement parts IMO.

Improve the ride and handling with springs and dampers and a rear ARB. 

Any parts needing replaced.  But only lower if you want to.

 

I stuck with standard springs and dampers on hatchbacks because i got free take offs from people upgrading their cars. 

[J.R.]

Cumalatively there are millions of miles of testing, companies like Ricardo have whole sections of employees that do nothing but drive pre-production vehicles on 3 shifts of 8 hours a day every day. Also new drivetrains transplanted into existing models.

 

But it can never be the same conditions as commuter cars driven infrequently, the more you condense the test program (more cars running more hours and miles) the further away it gets from what the majority of production vehicles will experience.

[Ootohere]

The problem with the Hillman Imp and other cars was they ran them for hours, days and weeks in testing.

No use when you want to just start it and drive to work and drive home again, so heat up, cool down, then heat up and cool down and not warp the head or leak.

 

So VW Group since going from air cooled engines have managed to procure or fit crap water pumps, timing chain tensioners, door and hatch seals etc for generation after generation of models and they fail to keep liquids in and other liquids out.

Even now IT and 12 volt battery systems even for EV or Hybrids is crap and cars are being delivered with then knowing they are not fit for purpose. 

They cheated emissions, deny any failures and blame junior employees never the senior management or the board.

 

They can have failures of many thousands on 1.4, 1.8 & 2.0 TSI / TFSI's yet spend years making out it is user error.

 

They took IT in house, had problems had to recall VW's and then they put the software and hard ware into Skodas and delivered them and then start to find a fix. 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot

[nta16]

4 hours ago, roottoot said:

Because 225's were too much,

@roottoot  Fair enough, but 205 did sound dangerously thin (note please: this is a joke)  especially for a modern car.   What's all this 135 one bar of an electric fire stuff  we're in (little) Britain we work in old money and archaic measurements even more ancient than these internal combustion engines.

 

You'd have to ask the VW programmers if everything is actually turned off when you press the button to turn it off, can you imagine the Merc lot actually having turned off when they say it is and trusting a Merc driver - but I've no idea, I'm sure BMW and Audi drivers can be fully trusted.  I've no idea what you'd do with a car that doesn't have the aids to turn off, crash I guess.  😄

 

[J.R.]

Early on the sauce today?

[Ootohere]

I expect you are, or on mushies. 

Edited 18 September, 2022 by roottoot